


Whatever The Opposite Of Unraveling Is

by Foalan2



Category: Hetalia: Axis Powers
Genre: Historical, Labor Unions, ish
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-05
Updated: 2021-01-05
Packaged: 2021-03-16 03:07:43
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,832
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28574997
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Foalan2/pseuds/Foalan2
Summary: The Gas Stokers Union is preparing to strike, and England decides to intervene with some magic to great success. Portugal helps keep her grounded during the process. Set in 1889, not that I did that much research. I listened to an orchestra version of All Star and inspiration hit.
Relationships: England/Portugal (Hetalia)
Kudos: 4





	Whatever The Opposite Of Unraveling Is

“I’m telling you England, what you’re asking for just won’t work.”

One of the managers of the Rotherhithe Gas Company was reading over a list of union demands. Just the one demand really - 72 retorts per shift, totalling up to eight hours a day. It’d require a change in work pace, a change in payment per shift, a change in scheduling and paperwork and a change in how the managers would talk to  _ their _ bosses, and how they’d answer when they were asked why the level efficiency had gone down. Too much for the average manager, really.

  
“I’m sure we can make it work,” replied England. Most of her people had the right to the eight hour workday, or at least in practice. Even in South London, where tradespeople practically smothered the streets, most workers weren’t working 12-hour days like the gas stokers were. Nevertheless, the gas stokers union wanted eight hours, so here England was.

The late July heat smothered the room with it’s grey and tan interior, devoid of the life you may find outside a stuffy office building. Not green life, not anywhere gas was processed and the continuing progression of electric energy dampened the spirits of the workers. More the gas stokers union themselves, readying a strike after laying low for years. 

“I don’t see why we should concede to your demands. They’re unreasonable at best.”

England stiffened her jaw. “I think you’ll find our demands are quite reasonable, as are our methods for reaching them.” She couldn't threaten a strike, not without risking more jail time for activists. She could threaten mass quitting and strike that way, but that’s too heavy a card to play at the moment. More back-and-forth would have to do for now.

“How am I to concede these demands? The changes to the work would be enormous. What are we to do, as Managers?”

“The change would be just the thing the workers need in order to live freely in between work and other obligations. What you can do, at the least, is think on it and see if a sign comes to you.”

The boss laughed a little. “A sign? From the heavens? Or maybe hell!” He threw down the paperwork before he continued. 

“I’ll concede to the part where I take my time to respond, and get back with you.”

England forced a smile, ignoring the passive-aggressiveness. In reality, this was just what she needed. The two parted without much in the way of further conversation, and England made her way home, to the grocer, and then to Portugal’s house. 

England knocked on the door of Portugal’s house. Portugal opened her door a second later, pleasantly surprised. There were no administrative things they needed to discuss as part of their alliance, and they’d both agreed to take a rest from arguing over African colonial matters. Their alliance needed it. Really, she and England can both forget about political arguments fairly easily. 

Meanwhile. England was making up her mind as to how to ask what she wanted without overly involving Portugal in something a bit … dirty. 

“Hello Portugal! I brought you some specialty cheese and flowers, the ones you like that I have,” said England with a smile. 

“Hello! Come in, please,” replied Portugal easily. England stepped in, and set the whole basket on the table. It was technically Portugal’s basket, so really, this was returning one favor while asking for another. Cheese and flowers might not be enough, but England had other things to offer anyhow.

Portugal was dressed in a long dress, muted green with dark red stitching, and light yellow slip-on shoes to pair a similarly colored ribbon at the back of her hair used to tame long dark curls. 

“What brings you here today?”

England chose her words carefully. “I’ve come to ask for a small favor.”

Portugal furrowed her brows as the ambient heat of her Iberian home started to make England sweat. Somehow, Portugal’s foundation never seemed to come undone the same way England’s did - then again, Portugal had little to hide.

Still, Portugal and England were good friends, strained as their relations were at the moment. “Whatever you need, so long as I can do it minha amiga.”

England felt relief and smiled. “I need to perform a small spell tomorrow morning, a simple one, nothing sacrilegious, and I only need someone to watch my body.”

Portugal breathed in slightly, tensing up a bit. She had little experience in witchcraft and what England’s celtic side had taught the latter. She preferred to stay away from that sort of supernatural work, for the sake of her sanity. 

“What about Scotland?”

“Well, that’s the thing - she needs her body watched too, and Ireland can’t watch over us both.”

  
This wasn’t entirely false - Scotland  _ was _ going on a magical trip with Norway, and Ireland  _ was _ watching her corporal form while her soul traveled elsewhere. Scotland always felt it fun in a risky way. And, normally, the spell wasn’t particularly sacrilegious, not with the right ideas. Is there much difference between this sort of thing and meditation, when it came down to it? 

Portugal looked away from England’s face, unsure of herself. “Well, okay, but only as long as no one gets hurt.”

“That’s the thing - all I need for you is for you to watch over my body, keep it safe and warm, and I’ll be back in a jiffy! Won’t take longer than three minutes, I swear.”

She looked back at England’s bright smile. “Are you sure?”

“Without a doubt.” Longer than three minutes was dangerous anyhow. Another non-lie.

“... I’ll do it then, but I’ll want pasta to go with the cheese.”

England laughed. More so because the situation called for it than genuine laughter, but she laughed nonetheless. She made sure to stay and chat for as long as Portugal wanted, until they ran out of wine and zest for conversation. Portugal never went back on a promise, but the less nervous energy in the room when England made the spell, the better. Conservation would help for tomorrow morning.

With the deal made, England went back to her house and prepared the spell. First, she grabbed a ball of yarn, some pipe cleaners America had sent her, and scissors. Sneaking into the manager’s office was easy given the ability to teleport, but crawling under the table was harder. She cut the ball of yarn in half and loosely wrapped one of the pipe cleaners around it, creating two tufs of rough yarn per half ball. One stayed under the table, the other went home with her. That is, not until after she’d quickly marked some papers, wood, a magnet, and cabinet handles with a pen. 

Returning to her musty basement, she began drawing the sigils necessary in a non-binding way on a piece of paper, to keep the design well-organized. In fact, the sigils could easily take a very decorative shape if arranged the right way. After all, England needed to decorate a cake for Portugal. 

She’d bought the cake from France, already perfectly covered in fondant, along with decorative glitter. She already had edible paint at home, and she’d discovered alcohol worked well to bind the paint to the frosting. All the better for the magic... although not great for her alcohol stores. 

She dug the cake from her icebox upstairs, still in its box, took it down to the basement, and then went back up for the glitter and paint. The dessert supplies were prohibitively expensive, all done in white sugar and egg whites. The cake was a wonderful pale colour inside and out, and the fondant even more so. The dark edible paint would allow for a very elegant experience, perfect for her plan. Downstairs, she started to take the cake apart.

It was a bit sad to have the perfectly covered cake be taken apart, but it was wholly necessary for the spell to work. The cake was really two cakes stacked on top of one another, and made into tiers. Unfortunately, the top tier would have to go to waste. At least until the spell was over, and England could tear into it without anyone watching. A large cookie cutter and a knife carved out a space underneath the top tier, and in went the other yarn half and some of the now mangled cake to cover it up. Down went the top tier, and the job was halfway done. 

England can’t cook or bake, but she can draw, and she had until nine in the morning to get the sigils right. It was harder to draw circles on the round sides of the cake, though. She decided to use the cookie cutter and a metal ruler and simply bend them to where it needed to be, then painted inside of it. Done repeatedly, and the right circles and lines appear almost as if by magic. 

Hours later, and she was almost done. All it needed was something to start the spell, and that was coming in… about an hour. Normally England would have already been weaving her magic, but she wanted to make the best possible environment for Portugal to participate in. Sigils scrawled on the ground can be quick, but nervous energy at the start wouldn’t do. She decided to set up the glitter, green and red in little spoons, sure to make a mess and a lovely addition to any monochrome cake. Then, she waited.

Hours passed, and Portugal finally knocked on England’s door. She hadn’t thought to wait upstairs, absorbed into her work as she was, so a minute passed before she could answer. Luckily for England, it’s difficult to notice when someone wears the same outfit several times in a row when you’re in a low-budget anime, so all Portugal saw was a bit of frosting on England’s arm and some disheveled hair. The former was unusual, but who would notice the latter?

“Hello England. My sweets burned, and I’m blaming you,” joked Portugal with a smile. She was happy to talk with a friend, and to discuss food. England smiled genuinely this time. “At least I know how to prepare my fish properly,” joked England back.

Portugal stepped in, smiling wider. “Whoa, wait, I caught you copying my recipe the other day!” 

England led her down the steps as they talked. “How do you know I wasn’t copying Spain’s recipe?”

Portugal sputtered as she started to stomp down the stairs, clacking dress shoe bottoms against hard stone. “First of all, the recipes are different - Spain uses the wrong batter.”

“Oh?” England stood in front of the cake. 

“Secondly, I saw your recipe!! It was mine, you copied it, and I know you know it wasn’t Spain’s fish!.” Portugal stopped at the end of the stairs in front of England, before looking at the floor.

“Where is the stuff for the spell?”

“England smiled and stepped aside, revealing a monochrome cake. Portugal’s eyes lit up as she smiled wide and gasped. “Magic has cake sometimes?? Minha amiga why did you not tell me?”

“I didn’t want to just ask you to watch over me without something in it for you, Portugal.” Portugal looked over and put her hand on her chest. “Besides, I know how much you like glitter.”

If it was possible, Portugal’s eyes lit up even more. “What colors? Tell me now. Please.”

“I thought red and green would go nicely, don’t you think?. Why don’t you blow some on? While you’re doing that, I feel like I need to sit down. Sometimes this spell makes me tired. Could you cut us both a slice afterwards as well?” She did not need to sit down in terms of fatigue, but it wouldn't collapse. She felt bad that Portugal didn’t know how integral she was to the spell, but she had little in the way of options. Besides, she’d been meaning to give her cake. 

Portugal, sweetheart that she was with England, didn’t hesitate. “Please, please, sit! I love glitter and will cut us both a big slice from the bottom. Okay?”

“Perfect! Put the glitter on, I want to watch.”

Portugal laughed, “Oh, I’m doing it now! Wait a second.” She grabbed the spoonful of red and green glitter and breathed out harshly, throwing glitter around the cake and table. She walked around, did it again, and threw the rest on for a messy, wonderful combination of decorative and literal sugar. Just by pure luck, she was so absorbed into cutting a slice that she didn’t notice England leaning back…. And passing out. 

Meanwhile, at nine in the morning in South London, the gas stoker bosses huddled into a meeting room. They were hiding from a mass of strikers - well, a mass of stokers that had gone on strike by quitting rather than refusing to come into work. The law is the law, of course. None of them wanted to say “yes,” but they were running out of excuses to say “no.”

Underneath their chairs and the big table, a small pipe cleaner was unwrapping itself from a ball of cut yarn. Truly, cutting the ball of yarn made the whole affair easier, as there was plenty of room to stretch or bend as needed. On the other hand, a spool of yarn may have been better. Indeed, cut yarn is hard to weave. Nevertheless, with two stiff metal ends and a lot of yarn and time you can fasten any two pieces together. 

The pipe cleaner had some practice and knew tying the largest pieces was the quickest way to go, and had the luck to find she didn’t need the smaller pieces to make a large enough ball. Maybe it was said pipe cleaner’s planning, or the woman covering her body with a blanket as she paced. Regardless, a ball was formed. On another note, many of those that practice magic find that they can bind their magic to any number of actions beyond a wave of the wand. A wand is convenient, but lifting a small ball of yarn and dropping it can do the trick. 

It’s also fairly easy to stretch a soul from a pipe cleaner into a mass of yarn, some paper, some pens, some wood in a now broken table, some drawers pulled open with quite the start, a magnet, and some paper clips scattered across the room. Ink is very useful for magic, or rather, ink with intent. It wouldn’t do to gather everything ink had touched. After all, the Gas Stokers Union Letter of Demands could wait to be gathered up. 

The great thing about stretching a soul is that it always wants to go back into the shape of a nice neat, compact humanoid form. This can be frustrating, but only if you don’t know how to use it to your advantage. If you do, a little bit of wood can be made almost bone-ish, some pens finger-like, some paper clips into bendable joints, paper crunched up and combined into a masculine form, and a ball of yarn to keep the head together. Not that there was much there. Just the idea of a face - functioning eyes and a mouth are hard to make. 

Fortunately for our story, our bundle of horror could very easily find the paperwork it had written before. It grabbed the paper as neatly as possible, crunching paper all the way, and waved it slowly around the room. It dropped the paper back on the table, paused, and fell apart just as quickly as it formed, like a breath held. 

England woke up with a deep breath in the basement, covered in a blanket near a fire as Portugal sat close to her. It was all pleasantly warm when she first awakened in her nearly frigid body.

“You are awake! Finally. Minha amiga, you got so cold and almost blue - I saw it even through your foundation. Were you holding your breath?”

England paused for a moment, getting her bearings. “Time moves slower in the spirit world.” This was not a lie, just an omission. She got up, ignoring the lingering chills, and looked at the cake. Portugal had eaten a quarter of it. 

“I’m sorry, I got stressed.” 

“It’s not a problem Portugal, I made it for you. Was it good?”

Portugal nodded. “Were you okay?”

“Yes! Everything went swimmingly. Most likely thanks to you.” England stepped forward and hugged Portugal as she sat. “Thank you for doing this with me even though magic makes you uncomfortable.” 

Portugal hugged her back, and didn’t say a word. 

Back at the Gas Stoker Strike, the managers had already called for a vote. The workers could choose between eight hour days, and all the schedule changes that implied, or 12 hour days. Overwhelmingly, the answer was eight hour days, and the Day of Freedom was established in English History. Perhaps the managers saw a sign from the heavens, or somewhere down below. 


End file.
